Chapter 10

                                    

                                          
It had been five days since everything had happened and I was still in hiding. Well, not so much as hiding rather than locking myself in my flat and hoping the police wouldn't come and find me. I still had enough food to last me for a while and I had running water and electricity, so that's what mattered.
                          
Every time I turned the TV on I was bombarded with new stories of Chris' death and the fire at PJ's house. The pain and the guilt rubbed at my fresh wounds until they were red-raw and I was crying pitifully into my hands, but I still couldn't bring myself to turn the programs off. I had to know what was going on outside my flat; whether or not they were going to come and knock my door down at some point in the near future.
                          
The fire was hungry and had ravaged nearly everything, but luckily enough the police department had managed to uncover a few untouched documents in his house that linked PJ to Chris' death. There were letters from the FPP detailing the plan of what was to happen and even a few vials of the vaccine. PJ was convicted almost immediately and although he's being treated in hospital for second degree burns right now, as soon as he's healthy enough to be released, he's going straight to a maximum security prison for life. Despite everything that's happened, I found it bittersweet. On one hand, PJ had lied to both of us for months and had killed my best-friend, but on the other hand, he was one of my most trusted friends and the memories I had with them both were ones I still cherished.
                          
It made me feel sick when they talked about the extent of PJ's injuries, knowing that I was the one who had caused them. I had mutilated him. It made me cry knowing how much pain I had caused in my fit of rage. First, I had hurt Phil and now PJ. In the dark and lonely hours of the night, all my mind could do was scream at me how I hurt everyone. It hurled toxic thoughts at me until I was left ragged and torn and weeping.
                          
Chris' family were filmed at his funeral. Over three hundred people attended the church in London, and although I should have been happy that so many cared about Chris, it made me angry instead. These people didn't know him, they didn't know his quirks and his fears; his jokes and his smile. They didn't know anything; they were only there for a horrific fascination of a gruesome death. They didn't care like I did, and as much as it pained me to say, they didn't care like PJ did. Chris and PJ's friendship was special, although now I spent my days carefully remembering every last detail about PJ.
                          
Is there a way I could have stopped what happened? If only I'd looked closer, surely there was some strange quirk or story of his that I could have marked as suspicious. There has to have been something, only if I look deeper. And so, I spent my lonesome hours frantically picking through my countless memories and meaningless conversations. It's too late my brain called to me, but I didn't listen.
                          
I was sitting on the sofa, mesmerised with the pictures they showed on the screen. It was Chris and PJ, a photo taken at Christmas last year. They were wearing matching jumpers and were sitting by the fireplace, their faces illuminated by the flickering light. Investigators had worked out that they were friends and I knew it was only a matter of time before they realised that there was actually another person in their pairing. The Three Musketeers. The thought made me smile wryly but the action felt wrong.
                          
"I'm sorry Dan."
                          
A voice spoke from behind me and I jumped so hard I fell off the sofa and landed heavily on the floor, my weighted limbs tangled with one another. I twisted my head to see who it was and when my eyes landed on the blue-eyed black-haired man standing behind the sofa I felt my stomach twist with anger and betrayal. I stood quickly and stared at with every ounce of rage and disgust I could muster. To my pleasure, Phil looked crumpled. His clothes were rumpled and creased and his eyes were a dull grey, his skin pale as usual and his black hair sticking up in all directions as though he'd been running his fingers through it.